


Try The Door

by fishstic



Series: Steven Universe Drabbles [5]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: College AU, F/F, Human AU, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4709843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishstic/pseuds/fishstic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a drabblish work of Amethyst talking to Pearl about things that have been bothering her. Based partially on conversations I've been having with a friend lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Try The Door

It was locked, that probably scared her more than anything else. It was never locked. Never. There was no reason for it to be. Pearl kept it unlocked because she was the resident adviser and more than happy to let her friends in and help them.

Amethyst almost knocked. It was three am and she needed to talk to someone. She needed to. But if it was locked then maybe, just maybe, Pearl didn’t want to talk to her either. All her other friends were asleep though and it wasn’t like she could go to Vidalia. They hadn’t talked in a long time.

“You’re just a couple miles away, understand me, I want to see you again but something has changed. Something is different now, in the way I feel and what I want from life. I miss you and I still want you, but there’s something more. Something bigger. Plus I’m an RA now and I can’t just leave at three am on a Wednesday.”

Amethyst thought for a moment, it sounded like Pearl was talking to Rose. Then maybe she should just leave. Rose was more important than whatever petty feelings she had. She could wait. She always waited, this wasn’t any different. She could wait forever if she needed to.

She went to turn away and leave but didn’t notice that she was standing on the ear of one of her bunny slippers and tripped falling face first into the wall across from Pearl’s door. “Shit. That hurt.”

“Rose, I have to go, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I promise.” Pearl’s door opened fairly quickly and she came out to help Amethyst up. “Amethyst are you okay?”

Amethyst didn’t reply just let Pearl help her to stand.

“What were you doing out here?”

“I wanted to talk, but you were busy and your door was locked and I didn’t want to be a bother and just let me go back now, let me leave. I don’t want to bother you.”

“Amethyst you’re not bothering me. Please come in,” Pearl said gently. “I don’t mind.” When Amethyst walked into the room Pearl followed and closed the door behind them. “Have a seat anywhere.”

“I know the rules P. But can we throw away the formalities? I need to tell you something and I need you to not laugh at me or talk about yourself when I do.”

Pearl almost told her that the rules were there for a reason and she couldn’t just not follow them, but something about the look on Amethyst’s face told her not to. “Do you want me to sit down first?”

Amethyst was surprised by that question. She had expected Pearl to tell her they couldn’t ignore the rules. “I guess, I mean if you want to I don’t really care. It’s your room.”

Pearl nodded and sat down on the edge of her bed with her hands folded on her lap. “I’m all ears.”

Amethyst nodded and paced for a moment thinking. “I keep seeing on facebook where my friends are hanging out and having fun without me and I can’t help but think that I shouldn’t bother asking them to hang out with me. They’re having more fun without me. I just sort of feel like, they’re better off without me. Most people are better off without me.”

Pearl started to say something about how Amethyst meant the world to her but stopped short when she remembered Amethyst didn’t want her to talk about herself.

“I’m always the one causing trouble. I’m always the one who just can’t do it right. The one who breaks things, or ends up getting hurt and it’s not fair on them. I don’t know what to do about it though. I don’t know how to be less, less well me. I am not the kind of person my friends need to be around. I’m just a big mistake, and I’m afraid one day they’ll realize that too.”

“Amethyst you are not a mistake,” Pearl said gently.

“Tell that to my parents,” Amethyst muttered. “They never wanted me. Why should anyone else want me either. You should just go back to talking to Rose. She’s more important. She matters more. I don’t matter. My problems aren’t worth keeping you awake. Hers are.”

“No,” Pearl said firmly. She wasn’t going to let Amethyst keep thinking that way if she could do anything about it.

“Yes,” Amethyst snapped back. She couldn’t let Pearl lie to make her feel better. She wouldn’t let that happen.

“No,” Pearl snapped. “That’s not true!”

Amethyst looked up at her with tears in her eyes. “Pearl do you know why I keep asking you to stay here with me over the holidays? It’s probably not what you think.”

Pearl looked hopeful for a moment but at the words ‘not what you think’ lost just a little bit of that hope. But then, maybe Amethyst just didn’t know what Pearl was thinking.

“When I came home from fall semester last year my parents were really disappointed in me even though I made top marks in all my classes. ‘You’re not doing what we want you to,’ they said. ‘You’re not meeting our expectations. Did you think we haven’t heard about all the trouble you’re causing?’ I will be the first to admit, I never expected them to not hear about it. I expected them to have stopped caring by then. They threatened to take my phone away, to take my car away. To take away all the things that make me happy. Well I’d had enough of that.”

Pearl didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to interrupt but it was sounding a lot like it really wasn’t what Pearl thought.

“I told them that I was an adult now and they couldn’t just take away the things I was paying for with my own money, like my car and my phone and of course they got mad at me for talking back to them and that made me mad. They called me ungrateful and said that I never appreciated all the things they did for me. I asked them if they meant the things like feeding me and buying me clothes and making sure I had a roof over my head and when they said yes I got really mad. I told them I shouldn’t have to be grateful that they did the bare minimum required by law for their child that they chose to have.”

Pearl frowned. She’d never thought that Amethyst’s life at home could have been that bad, she’d always seemed so carefree about it.

“They said they’d never wanted a child in the first place that I was just a mistake that they had to live with. So I did the only thing I could think to do, I took what little bit of things of mine I’d left at home and put them in my car and told my parents that I never asked for it to be this way. I never asked to be born. And that if they didn’t really want me then I didn’t want them anymore either. So I left.”

Pearl bit her lip. There was so much she wanted to say but none of it seemed quite right. None of it seemed even remotely appropriate.

“I ask you to stay because I have nowhere else to go. And and maybe I like you a little. I’d rather be stuck with you than stuck alone.” Amethyst frowned for a moment. “Wait P, that didn’t come out right.”

“It’s alright, Amethyst. I understand what you mean,” Pearl said with a soft smile. “You like having me around.”

“You,” Amethyst turned away for a moment trying to process the way Pearl had said that. She didn’t sound condescending or like she was making fun of her the way some people had before. “You say that like you like having me around too.”

“I do like having you around,” Pearl said with another soft smile.

“Why?” Amethyst didn’t turn to see Pearl’s smile, if she had maybe she would have seen more than just friendship lingering behind it.

“Do I have to spell it out for you, Amethyst? I like you,” Pearl said very seriously.

“But why?” Amethyst asked just as seriously.

“Because you’re funny, and unique, and smart, and I just think you’re pretty cool,” Pearl said.

“But you also think I’m loud, and rude, and vulgar, and childish,” Amethyst countered. “And reckless,” she added almost as an afterthought.

Pearl thought for a moment then said, “I do, but that’s just part of what makes you special. What makes you an individual.”

“What would you know about what makes me an individual? You struggle with that yourself.”

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” Pearl asked.

“Everything you do, you do to make yourself fit neatly into some category or other but the moment that one of your skills is needed you flake. You claim there’s someone better, someone more experienced even if there’s not. You will do anything to fit into some presubscribed notion of what you’re supposed to be but the moment comes when that’s exactly what’s needed you fall short because you’re afraid. Afraid of standing out from the group. You’re so worried about fitting in that you don’t even realize that’s making you stand out like a sore thumb,” Amethyst said.

“Oh.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say? You always seem surprised when guys hit on you, but like you hang out with me and Garnet all the time, of us you’re the most normal. I’m loud and reckless, a challenge that they know they can’t win. Garnet, well she’s Garnet. But you give off that weird vibe that guys like. The vibe that says ‘I’d date someone to fit in.’ Pearl, I like you. A lot. But I don’t see where you get off being able to say that you like my individuality when you fight yourself so hard to try to erase your own.”

“Amethyst,” Pearl said quickly standing up and walking over to her. She placed her hands on Amethyst’s shoulders. “What exactly is bothering you? You’re not talking like you normally do and I’m worried, but I don’t know how to help. From what I can tell, you’re really upset about something, but it’s something you’re trying not to let yourself get angry over. You’re stalling, and you’re changing subjects rather quickly and rather drastically even for you.”

“I’m not sure. You know I’m not good at this P,” Amethyst said stepping away from Pearl. “I don’t know what to say that I haven’t already. I have nowhere to go. I feel like my friends are better off without me. They shouldn’t be around me. I’m bad. And I don’t like that you don’t like who you are when you’re not trying to be who you think everyone wants you to be.”

“Spring break starts on Friday,” Pearl said, it wasn’t an attempt to change the subject, but rather to ease Amethyst into the suggestion she was about to make.

“Yeah I know that P. Or I would have waited,” Amethyst said. “I know you’re going home and I’ll be here--”

“I’m not going home, I’m going to the beach,” Pearl said quickly before Amethyst could finish saying that she’d be alone. She reached out and took Amethyst’s hand guiding her to turn around and look at her when she said the next part. “And I’d love it if you came with me.”

“Shouldn’t you ask your parents first or something?” Amethyst said not knowing that it wasn’t a family vacation.

“I’m 21 years old, I think I can decide who comes on my vacations on my own,” Pearl said with a smile. “It would just be you and me.”

“Why would you want to take me? I’m not worth your time. You should take someone who matters. Like Rose or Garnet,” Amethyst said trying to keep herself from yawning. That would certainly make her seem a thousand percent less serious than she was.

“I want you because I care about you,” Pearl said.

“Why though? I don’t matter,” Amethyst said.

“You matter to me,” Pearl said pulling Amethyst into a gentle hug. “Even if you feel like you don’t matter to yourself.”


End file.
